


tears in the rain

by monstermash



Series: memento mori (remember, you will die) [13]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: (mostly bicentennial man inspired now that i think about it), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, DBH AU, Detroit Become Human AU, Gen, anyway point is is that im gonna fight david cage in a denny's parking lot, basically it's just an android au, but like very loosely based off of dbh, oh and bicentennial man, with some hints of blade runner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-22 17:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15587352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstermash/pseuds/monstermash
Summary: The knocked over lamp flickers as he stands there, breathing heavily in shock at what has just occurred.I should not be feeling shock,a part of him says faintly in the back of his mind.I should not feel at all.There’s something wrong; something wrong with himself and he should find out what, but that isn’t important right now.





	tears in the rain

**Author's Note:**

> dbh au because i remember seeing a post about how someone wanted one w/ the deputy being the one to save the seeds from their dad or something like that (it's been a while since i saw the post and i can't find it anymore) and because i think the game was a good concept, but has a _lot_ of issues (mostly due to david cage's bad writing lmao). 
> 
> although now that i think about it, this is mostly influenced by Bicentennial Man. really the only dbh elements are the RK series and the little lights androids have at their temples.
> 
> also i changed the age gaps between the brothers a bit because the "canon" ages don't really make a lot of sense for the timeline we're given for them

The knocked over lamp flickers as he stands there, breathing heavily in shock at what has just occurred.

 _I should not be feeling shock,_ a part of him says faintly in the back of his mind. _I should not feel at all._

There’s something wrong; something wrong with himself and he should find out what, but that isn’t important right now.

What _is_ important is that he take the child from this room. The child should not have to see the after effects. He catches a glimpse of himself in the cracked mirror; blood spattered across his face, the LED at his temple flashing the same red, and parts of his synthetic skin trying to mend over the damaged shell beneath it and there are green eyes looking back at him.

Has he always had green eyes?

Faint crying draws his attention back to the present, away from the mirror and towards the child huddled in the corner. He needs to get the child to his brothers who wait outside. The database he’s connected to tells him the child is John Seed, six years old, though his brothers called him Johnny.

He crouches down, close but far enough away to not crowd the child. 

“Are you alright, John?” he asks, because the way John has curled in on himself, it makes it difficult to scan for injuries.

John hesitantly looks up at him and then the tears come full force and then he nearly falls backward with how quickly the child moves, tiny arms wrapping around his neck and sobbing on him.

He… he has no idea what to do in this situation. He was not built to comfort, not built to feel sympathy and concern.

But then again, he wasn’t built to feel at all yet here he is.

Carefully, he scoops the child up, softly shushing him and carries him from the wrecked room, through the house, past all the overturned and smashed furniture, and out onto the porch where the boy’s older brothers wait for them.

The oldest, Jacob (Jake, seventeen years old), holds his broken arm against his chest and looks too stony faced for one so young; they’ll need to make a sling for his arm until paramedics and backup arrive. Joseph (Joe, fourteen years old) takes John from his arms and quietly though sincerely thanks him, face blank except for his eyes that seem too old; old eyes that have seen too much in barely more than a decade.

He steps back into the house, finds some sheets that he tears into strips and makes a sling for the young man. Jacob has a black eye and blood trickling sluggishly from his nose.

Jacob’s hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist as he finishes securing the sling.

“My old man. Is he…?”

He doesn’t know if it’s hope or fear or a mix of both in the young man’s voice, but he tells the truth.

He doesn’t know how to lie. Not really.

“He can’t hurt you or your brothers anymore,” he answers honestly. And there’s a flare of what he assumes is anger as he remembers what he had walked into. The report had been classified as a domestic disturbance but finding an adult beating his children had been… It had been too much for him to see. It had been the straw to break the camel’s back, so to speak.

“Good.” The grip on his wrist relaxes and then there’s nothing else to do but wait on the porch with the children until backup arrives.

He doesn’t know if it’s odd or not that the brothers huddle around him, as if seeking shelter from a storm, as they sit on the porch steps; John curling up into a ball on his lap after wriggling free from Joseph's grasp, Joseph leaning heavily into his left side looking exhausted, and Jacob on his right side, keeping a few inches of space between them, clearly not used to leaning on anyone for anything.

And he himself sits there trying to sort through what had happened in that house.

There’s still blood spattered on his face and it isn’t his, impossible to be his at all since he isn't made of flesh and blood but of wires and metal instead, though the LED at his temple has gone from violent red to a sickly yellow.

\---

The flashing lights of the police cars light up the front yard.

He’s called forward to report, but the children refuse to move, which means he can’t move. With a sigh, the officer comes to them. The house has been searched and he knows they know what he did. He made no effort to try to hide it.

“RK00, report.”

He’s at a loss for words. He _knows_ what he did, but he can’t figure out how to say it.

“RK00, _report.”_

“I killed a man,” he finally says. “I attempted to subdue him, but it did not work out as it should’ve; I feared for the children’s safety.”

The officer sighs again, looks at them all warily before heading over to talk with someone else. A detective probably. He doesn’t know, he’s stopped paying attention for the most part.

“What will happen to us?” Joseph asks.

“You’ll go to next of kin.”

“And if we don’t have any?”

He pauses for a moment. “Then you’ll be placed in the foster system.”

Silence descends over them, the reality of their situation settling in for the two older brothers.

“What will happen to you?”

And that’s something he’s been trying not to think about. It’s very likely he’ll be shut off or have his memory wiped. Start over from scratch. He doesn’t like either option very much.

But he’s not a liar.

“Either shut off or my memory will be deleted. I felt fear and I’m not meant to feel at all.”

He looks at Joseph and sees a quiet, horrified expression and he doesn’t understand why.

(He doesn’t understand why he fears for what will become of these kids, why he fears for what will become of himself.)

“It won’t hurt. It’ll be like tears in the rain,” he says, quoting that movie he remembers one of the officers watching instead of working. He’d only caught the ending, didn’t fully understand the context of the speech – he still doesn’t fully understand the context – but found it beautiful and meaningful and liked it anyway.

(He shouldn’t find anything beautiful. He shouldn’t be able to have any preferences about anything. How long has he been like this without realizing?)

\---

He’s surprised that no one has tried separating him from the kids yet.

They all sit together down at the station, a doctor having come and gone to treat Jacob’s broken arm, and now they all wait for their fates to be decided. This isn’t standard procedure; he’s gone over the manual in his mind over and over again and this isn’t standard procedure. But then again, nothing about this is standard. Androids aren’t supposed to harm people, much less kill them in the defense of others.

A CPS case worker comes in at about 3am and he notices the way Jacob tenses up next to him, teeth grinding in what he assumes is frustration and anger, whereas Joseph’s shoulders seem to slump in resignation. John, however, doesn’t seem to notice the case worker’s arrival, too engrossed in bending RK00’s fingers this way and that, asking him questions about what it’s like to be a “robot man.”

It’ll be at least another hour before anything else happens by his guess. He’s used to sitting and waiting, but judging by the way the oldest Seed fidgets in his seat, Jacob is not.

“Do you think they’ll let me have custody when I come of age?” Jacob asks him with something that seems almost like fear. Joseph remains quiet but listens intently for his answer.

RK00 doesn’t know, not really. He was built for upholding the law in general; he has no clue what the process is for CPS. 

“It’s possible,” he finally decides on. “If you can prove to be capable of caring for and supporting your brothers then I don’t see why they wouldn’t grant you custody.”

“You don’t turn eighteen for another seven months. What if we get separated?” Joseph asks.

That’s also a real possibility, one that doesn’t sit well with him; it’s bad enough that they’ve gone through what they have, but to be separated as well? He hopes that the brothers will be able to at least stay together.

“Why can’t we stay with him?” John asks, pointing to RK00.

None of them gets the chance to answer as one of the detectives knocks at the door and motions for RK00 to follow. With great reluctance, he hands John off to Joseph and leaves the kids behind. He hopes that the kids will be able to stay together as he glances at the CPS worker who passes him, heading towards the room where the Seed brothers remain.

A strong emotion wells up within him that he can’t immediately place; protectiveness, he thinks and marvels at how odd it is that he’s become so attached to the kids in such a short span of time. Maybe it’s because of the situation he stumbled upon that caused this. He doesn’t know.

The detective leads him to the Captain’s office and the older, grizzled man who sits behind the desk looks at him with a passive expression.

He’s told that he won’t be shut off and examined for what went wrong. But he’ll lose his memory. He’ll be sent somewhere else.

The Captain offers his condolences and then before he knows it he’s being restrained and hooked up to a machine. He doesn’t remember how he got here. Shock, maybe?

_(He’s not supposed to feel shock. He’s not supposed to feel at all.)_

He balls his hands into fists and can feel synthetic nails bite into synthetic skin and there’s moisture building up in his eyes.

_Fear. Anger._

“Just tears in the rain,” he mumbles to himself, trying to calm his mind and ignore the flashing red pop-ups in his vision warning him that there’s an instability with his hardware.

The sequence starts and there’s static in his mind; his last thought is his hope that those kids will have a happy and good life, that they will find peace. If he had a heartbeat he's sure it would be racing as a weightless sensation falls over him, head knocking back against the headrest, mouth open in a silent cry and his vision flickers in and out.

“Tears in the rain,” he says and why is he saying that? Where has he heard that before? Why are his cheeks wet?

Then the static clears and there is nothing.

Was there ever something?

“RK00, are you functioning?” a woman asks.

“Yes, all systems are functional.”

“Good.”

“One is glad to be of service,” RK00 inclines one’s head before the woman reaches towards one’s temple (a brief flash of fear and no… one does not feel fear. One does not feel at all) and RK00 falls into sleep.

\---

One wakes to the sound of nails being pried out of wood.

The lid of the shipping crate pops open and RK00 is staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Not that one would recognize a familiar ceiling.

Two faces peer down at him; one man with blond hair and blue eyes (not quite the right shade of blue. What is the right shade of blue?) and the other man has darker blond hair and green eyes.

“I dunno about this, Earl,” the blue eyed man says with a frown as RK00 sits up. “Miranda’s… a bit concerned.”

The other man – Earl – waves him off. “C’mon, William. It’ll be fine. There’s just no room to store him down at the station. Besides, I’m sure he’ll be of use around here too.”

“One is glad to be of service,” RK00 says and waits for direction.

William sighs and looks at RK00. “Fine. What’s your name?”

“One does not have a name.”

“Well I’m not gonna keep calling you ‘RK00,’” William says and hums thoughtfully. “How about… Andrew?”

RK00 grimaces and it makes both William and Earl laugh.

“Alright, so you’re not an Andrew. Maybe… Garrett?”

One turns that over in one’s mind and… yes.

“Well, Garrett, welcome to Hope County.”

\---

During the day, Garrett spends a lot of time at the station or out on patrol with either Sheriff Whitehorse or Deputy Nancy. When not there, Garrett works at the Spread Eagle with William.

“You know, it’d probably be easier to refer to yourself with something other than ‘one,’” William says one night as they go about tiding the bar for the night.

“Of course, sir.”

“Just William is fine. Never liked being called ‘sir.’”

“Alright, Just William,” Garrett says and feels a smile tugging onto his face as William groans.

“Smartass,” William grumbles, but there’s no heat behind it.

\---

Out of curiosity, Garrett plays the piano after spending weeks orbiting it, his attention drawn to it more and more.

And a beautiful warmth settles in his chest as he plays, something he’s never experienced before. There are sparks going off behind his ribs and he doesn’t want to stop playing ever. William calls him a natural and lets him play during the slower nights.

The bar patrons start giving him money and Garrett has no clue what to do with it, so he tries handing it over to William, but the man just shakes his head and gives the money back to him.

“You earned that money so it belongs to you.”

So Garrett keeps it, saves his money though for what he honestly couldn’t say. He’s an android; he has no need for money.

\---

After a year in Hope County, William comes in beaming one day with his son on his hip and shows Garrett a picture of his newborn daughter.

“Mary May Fairgrave,” William says proudly, pointing at the baby bundled in pink in his wife’s arms, as his son stares at Garrett in wonder. “And this here is Billy.”

Garrett crouches down and holds a hand out to the boy who looks to be roughly five years old. “I’m Garrett.”

And then Billy starts talking a mile a minute and doesn’t seem to stop for the rest of the day as he follows Garrett around, though he does quiet down when Garrett plays the piano.

Clapping him on the back with a chuckle, William smiles as they close up for the night. “Looks like you’ve got a new best friend.”

\---

Four years pass by at an odd speed, as if time can’t seem to want to speed up or slow down.

He has more money than he knows what to do with, though he never really knew what to do with it in the first place.

So of course he decides to buy a house. Not that he even needs that much space, but it just seems like the thing to do.

“Well we’ll have to get you a last name then,” Earl says when Garrett tells him of his plan; he already told William and Miranda and they seemed happy for him. “Legal reasons and all that.”

It takes a brief moment of thought before Garrett says, “Rook.”

“Rook?”

“It’s the closest thing to my serial number. RK00. Rook.”

Earl chuckles.

“Well, Deputy Garrett Rook it is then.”

\---

He buys an old farmhouse that’s hard to find.

There’s something about it that calls to him but he can’t quite place what it is.

Maybe the quiet and the scenery is what draws him in.

\---

More years pass by and he’s essentially adopted into the Fairgrave family.

Mary May and Billy call him brother and even though Miranda isn’t as wary of him as she used to be Garrett can still see the hesitance in the way her shoulders always tense for a fraction of a second; she doesn’t need to worry though. Garrett would protect these kids even at the cost of himself.

William calls him son sometimes and Garrett likes to help Miranda wash the dishes after dinner even though he doesn’t eat.

It feels like home.

\---

There are some nights where he lays on his bed that he doesn’t need and stares at the ceiling.

Garrett feels like he’s forgetting something important, but he can’t remember what and it bothers him, because sometimes he’ll get flashes of _something._ But then it’s gone again, slipping through his fingers and it’s so frustrating.

Sometimes he’ll see his reflection and see blood splattered across his face and that can’t be right.

Billy breaks his arm when he’s thirteen and Garrett keeps checking to make sure his nose isn’t bleeding and that makes no sense, because broken arms don’t mean nosebleeds.

Whenever he hears a child crying in public he thinks of flickering lamps and overturned furniture and of a menacing figure which inspires a slow burning anger within him and it’s jarring.

\---

Garrett meets Rachel Jessop only once and that was while he was out feeding the crows.

She’s crouched down behind the bar, curled in on herself and Garrett recognizes her from the school play Mary May had been in.

“Are you okay?”

Rachel visibly startles and can’t seem to decide if she wants to glare at him or bolt. He waits patiently, tossing sunflower seeds and cheese chunks to the eagerly waiting crows.

“You’re that android who thinks he’s a person, aren’t you?” Rachel asks instead and Garrett can’t help the half smile that forms on his face.

“Something like that,” he answers. It’s not like there’s any doubt about who or what he is; for as more widespread androids are becoming he’s still the only one in all of Hope County. Silence falls over them again and he continues to feed the crows until he runs out of food to give.

Shading his eyes as he looks up at the sun, Garrett decides to grab a bottle of water for the kid; it’s been a particularly brutal summer this year. So, he steps inside briefly and takes one from the fridge and heads back out to see Rachel looking miserable as she stares down at the dirt.

Garrett presses the cold water bottle against her forehead and her head snaps up to look at him. With a hint of wariness, the girl tentatively takes the bottle of water from him, as if he might decide not to let her have it.

“You don’t have to tell me why you’re out here, but you’re always welcome here,” he tells her. She nods and they lapse back into silence for a while, watching the crows eat and Garrett lets them hop onto his arms and shoulders, cawing loudly in his ears, until it’s time for him to head inside and help set up for the night.

He never sees Rachel Jessop again after that, though he does find a scrap of paper tacked onto the backdoor of the bar with _Thanks_ written in looping handwriting.

Garrett keeps it on his fridge that he doesn’t use with all the family photos and old drawings from Mary May and Billy that have accumulated there over the years.

\---

The seasons come and go and everyone around him grows older while he stays the same, forever unchanging.

Deputy Joey Hudson has recently joined the Sheriff’s department; Garrett likes her. She doesn’t think he’s weird. Well, not _too_ weird. Mary May has gone off to college in Missoula while Billy has taken up working at the bar. There have been a few more androids that have been brought into Hope County, but they’re not quite like Garrett.

A strange religious group moves into the hills of Hope County, but they seem to be harmless for the most part.

William doesn’t trust them.

“Just a feeling I get when I look at ‘em,” he tells Garrett when he asks.

Garrett has yet to see them.

All he knows is that the religious group is run by siblings; three brothers and a sister.

\---

The night they go to make an arrest, seven years after the arrival of Eden’s Gate, Garrett has a bad feeling about it.

But he goes anyway.

Standing outside the church, where scripture is scratched into peeling white paint, the sound of people singing _Amazing Grace_ can be heard from within. The doors creak when Burke and the Sheriff open them, the floorboards creak even louder as the three of them enter the church. The LED light at his temple wants to flash yellow, to indicate the stress and unease he’s feeling, but Garrett manages to keep it a calm blue.

The Peggies in the pews stand one by one the closer they get to the front where their _‘Father’_ continues to give a sermon. Marshal Burke interrupts him, showing the arrest warrant. The cultists begin to cause a ruckus, but leave once their leader tells them to. The man’s siblings gather behind him, but they’re all… _looking_ at Garrett, or at least it feels like it.

Blue eyes.

_(The right shade. How is it the right shade? He doesn’t know.)_

“Not all tears are lost in the rain,” the man – Joseph Seed, and the name itches at the back of Garrett’s mind – tells him and Garrett can’t stop how the LED flickers to yellow.

“Tears in the rain,” Garrett murmurs. He knows the phrase but from where? The Seed family looks at him expectantly and his head is pounding, electricity sparking painfully behind his eyes.

He looks at them one by one; Jacob Seed (a broken arm, a bloody nose, and a black eye; spiteful and angry at his old man, wanting nothing more than to take care of his younger brothers), Joseph Seed (a fourteen year old kid whose eyes look impossibly old for his age), Faith Seed (Rachel Jessop; a gangly girl behind the bar when he was feeding the crows), and John Seed (a little kid who cried and looked up at him like he was some kind of savior; a robot man who came to save him and his brothers).

They all watch him, waiting to see what will happen, expecting _something._ His head hurts and he gets vivid flashes of a man with a menacing figure beating his kids and something within Garrett snapping. 

Blood on his face and a flickering lamp.

_Tears in the rain._

Garrett can tell the moment his LED goes from yellow to red because the air in the church becomes charged with expectation.

“Rook?” Earl asks, concern lacing his voice while Burke tells him to arrest Joseph and Garrett…

Garrett doesn’t know what to do; he can’t arrest them, but he can’t let them continue to kidnap people either.

He doesn’t know what to do and the too blue eyes of the Seed family watch his every move, waiting for him to make a decision.

**Author's Note:**

> i kinda feel like i rushed this but im tired (emotionally and physically) lmao
> 
> i may or may not continue this. we'll see


End file.
